“They don’t need GPS,” said Jaya. “I’m in marketing, and this is what we do: as long as you’re in a business district, every storefront you pass is going to read your ID. If the Bluescreen dealers know who you are, they can track you through that.”
Marisa glanced up at a pawn shop as she dragged Saif past it; she’d set her djinni to automatically filter out any coupons and ads, so she’d forgotten, but of course they were still scanning her. She swore.
“That’s brilliant,” Marisa growled. “Remind me to try that trick sometime when I’m not running for my life.”
“Hey lady,” said a man in the doorway of a branding hall. “You okay?” He was covered with several brands. Tattoos were so easy to do and undo, the only way to stand out was to destroy your skin, either with chemicals or a red-hot branding iron. This guy had several examples of both, by the look of it. Marisa looked back down, trying not to make eye contact.
“He’s my boyfriend,” she said quickly, “he got in a bar fight. We’ll be fine.”
“Dump the loser and get with a real man,” he said, stepping out into the sidewalk.
“Mari,” said Sahara, “you need to get out of there.”
Saif stirred again, his eyes half opening; one of them was rapidly swelling. “Mrrrr,” he said. The man on the street stepped closer, and Marisa let go of Saif to stand up straight, ready to defend herself. The approaching man only smiled.
“Mrrrrisa,” Saif slurred. “Did you punch me in the face?”
A passing car ran its headlights across them, causing the blood on her SuperYu fingers to glisten. The man saw it, paused, and backed off with a smile.
“No problem here, sister, you do what you gotta do.” He laughed. “Hit him once for me.”
“Mrrrrisa, I think you broke my face bone.”
“He’s kind of stupid when he’s unconscious, isn’t he?” said Fang.
“I’ve got Bao,” said Sahara. “What’s the message?”
“Tell him to meet me . . . by the USC campus, southeast corner. And then tell him to turn his phone off. We’re going dark.”
“Be safe,” said Sahara, and Fang and Jaya echoed the same. Anja was already offline. Marisa took a deep breath and shut off her djinni.
The world seemed to shrink.
The first sensation was, fittingly, blindness. It was still only twilight, and the street was still lit by neon signs and speeding headlights, but Marisa had become so accustomed to the djinni’s heads-up display lights that the whole world seemed darker with them off. Gone were the chat alerts, the news feed icons, the subtle navigational cues that were so much a part of her existence she didn’t even think about them anymore. Her peripheral vision had been filled with information overlaying the world, and now it was gone. She felt the darkness like a tangible object, smothering her like a cloak.
With the darkness came a sense of isolation—she was surrounded by people, but they were strangers, and the people she actually relied on were cut off and unreachable. Sahara and Anja were only a few miles away, but without that constant link they might as well have been in China with Fang. She couldn’t send messages, she couldn’t make calls, she couldn’t even blink the police or an ambulance if something went wrong. She had no one to rely on but herself.
It terrified her.
She almost turned her djinni back on, but it wasn’t safe. Even if they couldn’t control Saif, they could control others, like the five college students who’d killed eLiza. The only way to be safe was to hide. She stopped dragging Saif and stooped down, gently trying to shake him the rest of the way into consciousness.
“Saif, wake up. Come on, cuate, let’s stand up. Come on.” She pulled on his arm, urging him to his feet, and he stood up gingerly.
“My face hurts.”
“You’re lucky that’s all that happened,” she said softly. “I need you to turn your djinni off.”
“Did you punch me?”
“And I’ll do it again if I have to,” said Marisa, “but it’s better to just turn off your djinni.”
“Why do I have to turn off my djinni?”
“Because you’re an idiot drug dealer who uses his own drug.”
He seemed to freeze for a moment, then deflated slightly, his head drooping. “You said they could . . . control people,” he said. “Is that why I can’t remember the last ten minutes?”
“That and my fist,” said Marisa. “It was the only way to break their control. Now turn off your fracking djinni before they take control again.”
He nodded, and after a pause he seemed to cringe. “Oh, this is freaky.”
“Tell me about it,” said Marisa, and pulled him forward. “Now, let’s get walking. The people who did this were trying to silence you, because of something you know, and that means two things: first, they’re going to keep coming, so we have to stay offline and we have to get away from this spot, which is the last place they knew you were. Second, you need to tell me whatever it is they don’t want you to tell me.”
“I don’t know what they don’t want me to tell you.”
“Think,” she said, stopping at a curb while the traffic roared by. “Start at the top: do you know who programmed Bluescreen?”